Volunteers come in twos (mostly)

This is officially the year of volunteers in my garden.  I let a lot of things go to seed last year to keep the bees happy into the fall and the result of that is evidence of last year's garden popping up all over.  It's kind of crazy to think about those tiny little seeds, braving the cold long winters in the soil and how springtime just magically wakes them up and tells them it's time to live to their fullest potential...

Ok, well, it's not that crazy.  That's just the way nature works and that's how all other annual plants in this world survive year after year.  But, nonetheless, cool.  AND, these are the best of the best seeds that ended up surviving so all the plants are hardy little buggers.

Superstar!!!

Here is my list of volunteers:

2 Sunflowers
2 cucumbers
2 potatoes
3 lettuces
1 radish

One of the lettuce plants is a super champ.  It came up in the crack of the concrete slabs in our driveway.  I feel sad for it since it chose such an unfortunate spot and I can do nothing since transplanting it will probably result in killing it.  On the other hand, we have a plant that hit the target and came up in the raised bed and is growing like crazy.  We picked a couple leaves and put them in our sandwiches, for the official first mini-harvest of the season.  It was nice.

(A note for those of you who know my hatred of lettuce:  I don't hate it when it's from my garden.)

The potatoes came up where I had potatoes last year, and so did the radish.  The sunflowers came up where I had left a head for the birds in the fall, and those needed to be transplanted since they would have eventually been choked by my 'chokes (hahahaha).  The only ones I don't know the origin of are the cucumbers.  My cukes totally sucked last year and I only got one sad looking fruit.  It's a mystery how those seeds got there, but I'm not complaining.

This whole volunteer business gets me jazzed for saving seeds from our harvests this year for next year so I can avoid buying most of them.

Off to enjoy this beautiful weather now that I'm free of my academic obligations!

P.S.  Isn't this pretty?  I love Irises.  My backyard is just bursting with color right now.

Look at all those stamens!  (But these are petaloid. :))